Bang, Bang
by Urchin of the Riding Stars
Summary: Oneshot. Songfic. Comedy is when everyone gets married at the end. Tragedy is when everyone dies. It's a little bit of both when the man you love leaves you for dead to be with your mom. Twisted Pompous Pep, Spurned Affections, Gray Ghost pairing at end.


Bang, Bang

Songfic. Comedy is when everyone gets married at the end. Tragedy is when everyone dies. It's a little bit of both when the man you love leaves you for dead to be with your mom. Twisted Pompous Pep, Spurned Affections, Gray Ghost pairing at end.

~(*0*)~

:( This week has been a difficult one...thus, this was born. Some of you may recognize the Cher song from films such as Kill Bill. Huh, now that I think about it, there's sort of a similarity between that and this film...

Please R and R.

* * *

><p>~(*0*)~<p>

_I was five and he was six,  
>We rode on horses made of sticks<em>

It had certainly been bewildering, even a little terrifying when the flowers had started arriving in his room. Danny had to admit it; having your worst enemy deliver presents and love letters covered in sweet little nothings was a pretty much solid way to mess with your head.

He'd been disgusted. The flowers had ended up in the trash, and the notes had been incinerated in quivering hands by ectoplasmic fire. He'd go for nights on end without sleeping, trembling under warm covers, hearing the sincere pleading of the man who claimed to love him unconditionally ringing in his ears.

_He wore red and I wore white,  
>He would always win the fight<em>

The frightened teen had attempted to beat the truth out of him, desperate to end the charade once and for all. Out for blood, he'd flown to the mayor's house in the dead of night, wanting to maim and be maimed. Either or would've been fine; a return to normalcy, an escape from the self-revulsion and fear that kept nibbling at the edges of his heart with every kind word and gift.

Vlad hadn't even bothered fighting back when Danny had commenced attacking him-hadn't even bothered to transform when he'd looked up from his paper-strewn desk and saw Danny shaking like a leaf in front of him, fists clenched.

"COME ON!" he'd scream, slamming the unresisting man with one blast after another, eventually pinning him to the wall.

"Fight back, darn you! FIGHT BACK!"

But Vlad, even while bruised and bleeding and gasping in agony, had done nothing. Even lying on the floor, the look he'd given the panicked superhero was irrevocably tender. Enraged, Danny had wanted to blacken both those out midnight blue irises out. Preferably for good.

_Bang bang, he shot me down,_

_Bang bang, I hit the ground_

It wasn't long before the silver-haired man's head was cradled in a pair of silver arms, and Danny had wept profusely.

_Bang bang, that awful sound,  
>Bang bang, my baby shot me down.<em>

Jazz had wrung her hands and pleaded for her brother to come to his senses. She'd threatened. She bribed. She'd even followed through on some of her choice threats and had called Vlad in to social workers on charges of statutory rape.

It's rather interesting how a few choice payoffs to the pedestals of society can work in your favor. The proof Jazz had submitted was faulty, they claimed, and both males had vehemently denied doing anything indecent. In the end of that one, Jazz had been dismissed as some jealous extorter intent on suing the honorable and charitable Mr. Masters for no reason.

Of course she'd tried again. And again she failed. Telling her parents would be no good; Mr. Fenton would never believe it, and Mrs. Fenton would push for an investigation at the very least, which Jack would have ardently refused. They would have fought. And in any given circumstance, Danny could always escape through the nearest wall to see the billionaire ghost. Even when things had gotten to the point where Jazz had trapped her sleeping brother in his room with an ecto-shield, Vlad had only come for him.

That had ended very badly.

A sense of sickening dread would fill the girl's head and shredded heart when she would lay awake at night, knowing that Danny was phasing through the walls. She kept her blinds tightly shut, but even then in her mind's eye she could see a bolt of silver streaking its way into town.

Tucker had been appalled by the whole matter, and after a few vigorous attempts to break up the two hybrids, had left a wide berth around Danny. The two never talked anymore; there were only ever the uneasy moments where they passed each other in the hall at school, practically strangers.

Sam had been an entirely different story. There's really no use in identifying the specifics. The girl's resentment and sadness kept her a heart locked in a vice. So badly had she been hurt by Danny's decision, she accepted her parents' offer to send her to an elitist, all-girls' school, when it was common knowledge she hated such things.

Danny was very alone.

And not so very not alone.

* * *

><p><em>Seasons came and changed the time<br>When I grew up, I called him mine_

Physical items had never been the prompt for Danny's feelings. Far from it.

It was so reassuring to have someone understand the horror of being half-dead and half-alive, of having a conscience-free spirit long for absolute freedom outside its flesh dominion. So wonderful to be able to relate to someone who'd also regularly tumbled out of bed or had accidentally phased at inopportune moments. Vlad was very gentle, and admittedly very sweet in his bizarre, criminally insane way. The man helped him study. The man helped clean his wounds when Danny had gotten scraped up in a fight. The man had even fought alongside him on occasion.

When Danny's heart had been badly shaken after his best friends and sister had given him the cold shoulder, Vlad had comforted him. He'd felt like enough.

The two had gone on retreats together, had dates that consisted of walking down streets in Verona and lunch in a café in Paris. The two would spend hours messaging each other when they were apart, which was rare. They'd sit next to the fire, and tell anecdotes from their past. Memories of when he and Vlad were at each other's necks (Well, with violent intent, anyway) bewildered Danny, as if they belonged to someone else entirely.

Paulina had been puppy love. Sam, a faint sprout of affection never fully nourished. Vlad meant infatuation and affection and warm nights and silver stars and love.

_He would always laugh and say  
>"Remember when we used to play?"<em>

_Bang bang, I shot you down  
>Bang bang, you hit the ground<br>Bang bang, that awful sound  
>Bang bang, I used to shoot you down.<em>

He'd done it.

Like the vile demon was, he'd done it. Danny had been asleep in his arms, cheeks still rosy from the afterglow of having sex. Vlad had watched him sleep, lapis lazuli eyes cold as he gently scooped Danny into his arms, trying not to wake him.

He'd silently phased into his ghost form, and passed them both through the foundation of his manor, until the two had reached his lab.

He'd been afraid to do it, much to his horror and dismay. He hadn't been afraid of the law, or of hiding the body. He'd planned this out in his mind for months now; a swift and clean bullet to the heart, and then disposal of the body in the endless mire of the Ghost Zone, where it could never be found.

_Bang bang_

But as his shaking fingers typed in the passcode for his portal (M-A-D-D-I-E-M-A-S-T-E-R-s), his red eyes stared down at the sleeping boy still cradled in the nook of his arm, dreaming carelessly.

It had gone so, so much easier than he had planned. It had honestly frightened him a little.

He meant to eliminate Jack and Jasmine as soon as Daniel was out of the way-without him, the two were as good as corpses-and he'd known from the beginning that Daniel would present a challenge. He couldn't win over the boy; too many failures had left him with a bitter taste in his mouth, so the boy had to die as well.

Battle would have been too difficult. The teen's powers were impressive: he'd grudgingly given him that much. So he'd created an elegant façade to earn Daniel's heart.

To his surprise, it had succeeded, well beyond his wildest dreams. The boy had given his heart so innocently and trustingly to him that it had made him a little sick inside. He pitied Danny, for being so stupid, for holding his hand, for having sex with the man, for crying out loud-for agreeing to become the man's own, for making him so _happy_.

He'd faltered. Lingering threads of mercy had held his hand once. Once. The portal had opened like the mouth of a hungry monster, into the depths of the dead zone. The revolver had gleaned eerily in the faint green light.

A breeze had crept in, and brushed Danny's bangs lightly. After a moment or so, the younger halfa began to stir, and his eyes had sleepily opened. He'd yawned.

"V-Vlad?"

Frozen, Vlad had stared at the boy, who'd uncomprendingly stared back, completely confused.

No! He mustn't lose his resolve. This was what he'd wanted; what he always wanted, what he _deserved_. Daniel had had a chance to come to his side and had blown it, so this was his just reward. After the death of her husband and the "disappearance" of her two children, Vlad would take in a grieving woman in her time of need and earn her love. Danny had only ever been a pawn to get to that objective.

The boy had to die. He hadn't suffered and plotted for over twenty years to throw it away for a scrap of a foolish boy who'd fallen in love with him over the past eight months. He'd had enough of this façade. He did not, would not, could not love him.

His hands had shook, a cold sweat had beaded his face. Danny was staring at the open ghost portal behind him, a small, puzzled frown on his face.

"Vlad?"

Smiling, Vlad had pulled the boy into an embrace, strategically placing the revolver he held behind the boy's back, and took careful aim.

His eyes burned, and the world had shimmered through his eyes. Through barely moving lips and an inaudible voice, he whispered gently into the startled boy's ear:

"I'm sorry."

**BANG!**

_Bang bang, he shot me down,_

_Bang bang, I hit the ground_

Danny's eyes had dilated, his mouth open in a soundless cry as the shot rang out through the night. The oval on his chest began expanding almost immediately, and the gun slipped from Vlad's unfeeling fingers onto the tiled floor.

The boy only gazed at him, thunderstruck, bleeding everywhere as he watched Vlad carry him to the portal opening, refusing to look at him as he tossed Danny inside. The dying boy drifted away, watching Plasmius turn, and the portal doors slam shut.

A bitter cry that sounded like laughing and crying, Danny's eyes rolled back, and the boy's body tumbled like a leaf as a freezing gale swept off Danny to an icy bank in the darkness. His eyes rolled back, and he knew no more.

_Bang bang, that awful sound  
>Bang bang, my baby shot me down<em>

Once he'd seen that Danny was on his way, Vlad had quietly shut the lab door, and leaned against the metal archway. He had smiled slightly.

Then he staggered to the floor, face in his hand. A strangled sob escaped him.

* * *

><p>It was startling when his plan had come into fruition. Murdering Jack had been satisfying, but altogether more unnerving than anything else. Slitting Jasmine's throat had given him no joy, and he'd felt slightly sickened whilst tossing the poor girl into the Ghost Zone.<p>

At the loss of her husband, (Who had evidently been torn at by wolverines, given the state of his wounds) and the disappearance of her children had left Madeline bereft with grief. He'd hired the very best investigators to track down Danny and Jasmine, and visited her often in the night. He held the weeping woman, comforted her, and her grief became his. More so than she realized it could. Her trust in him grew, and while the investigators could pull up nothing for poor Jasmine or Daniel Fenton, Maddie wore Vlad's ring by the end of the year.

She was touched by his looked to be very similar grief at the death of her husband and his children. He said little, spoke little, and after their marriage, ate little, and he slept even less than Maddie.

At night, he'd go through as much as half a bottle to a full bottle of wine, just sitting at the fire, staring at the embers until morning. He could get no work completed at the office; he retired. He seldom smiled. He had a global empire, billions of dollars at his expense, and the woman he'd loved for over half his life on his arm.

And he had never been more miserable in his unhappy, wicked life! His dreams tormented him; he sobbed sometimes, when he was positive Madeline was not in the house. Danny's face filled his head, it paralyzed him, left him as a hopeless wretch on the floor in a stupor, craving to forget.

* * *

><p><em>Music played, and people sang<br>Just for me, the church bells rang._

He would have died, had Frostbite's people not discovered his almost-dead body. The snowmen had panicked upon seeing their Great One in such a state, and had immediately phased the boy into their laboratory for emergency heart surgery. Several of their gloomy masses had already begun planning their champion's tomb, and many were already consent to grieve.

It hadn't looked good. He'd been so pale, and so very covered in blood.

It was miraculous enough that the boy had lived through the surgery, although he would not wake. For three months, he lay comatose on a bed, and enormous furry monsters had traipsed awkwardly into the room to leave a pretty rock or well wishes at the bedside of the sleeping Great One. He was on life support; he slept night and day, and reacted to nothing.

A month went by.

And another.

And another one still.

Then, one day, he'd miraculously come to, and all of Frostbite's tribe rejoiced. Danny must have been thrilled. Why else would he have broken down in heartbroken sobs upon revival?

~(*0*)~

Sam and Tucker had been unable to reveal Vlad as the monster he was to the public. There was no proof. They were distraught, though overcome with joy when their old friend had sunk through the stone to greet them both. They believed him dead.

Danny's hollow and sunken eyes could have easily passed as the real thing.

* * *

><p><em>Bang bang,<em>

Vlad had not been hard to find.

_ He shot me down_

He'd been in his master bedroom, at gunpoint. He looked emaciated; his skin color was pallid and gray. His once voluminous and shiny hair was stringy; unkept. His nails had grown on the ugly shapes that were his hands. He was moaning softly, rocking back and forth.

_Bang bang,_

Then, in the mirror, he'd seen Danny drifting silently behind him, expression mutinous. He'd wept, and the shadow of a man had thrown himself at the ghost boy's feet, imploring forgiveness.

_ I hit the ground  
>Bang bang, that awful sound<br>Bang bang, my baby shot me down..._

The look on Danny's face made the man recoil, though he knew he more than deserved it. He'd pleaded for his death at the teen's hands.

_Bang, Bang._

Danny's face had been a cold, repulsed mask. He'd said nothing. Done nothing. How could he?

How do you kill the dead?

And so, he'd left the sobbing man's presence, leaving him in search of his mother. Vlad's wails had echoed through the manor, ringing in his ears…

And soon enough, an explosion had echoed in the halls.

_Bang bang, that awful sound  
><em>

_~(*0*)~  
><em>

And so it was that Vladimir Masters died that night, by his own hand.

_Bang bang, my baby shot me down..._

* * *

><p><em>Music played, and people sang<br>Just for me, the church bells rang._

He would have died, had Frostbite's people not discovered his almost-dead body. The snowmen had panicked upon seeing their Great One in such a state, and had immediately phased the boy into their laboratory for emergency heart surgery. Several of their gloomy masses had already begun planning their champion's tomb, and many were already consent to grieve.

It hadn't looked good. He'd been so pale, and so very covered in blood.

It was miraculous enough that the boy had lived through the surgery, although he would not wake. For three months, he lay comatose on a bed, and enormous furry monsters had traipsed awkwardly into the room to leave a pretty rock or well wishes at the bedside of the sleeping Great One. He was on life support; he slept night and day, and reacted to nothing.

A month went by.

And another.

And another one still.

Then, one day, he'd miraculously come to, and all of Frostbite's tribe rejoiced. Danny must have been thrilled. Why else would he have broken down in sobs?

~(*0*)~

Sam and Tucker had been unable to reveal Vlad as the monster he was to the public. There was no proof.

_Now he's gone, I don't know why  
>And till this day, sometimes I cry<em>

Though he never thought he would, he married. Valerie was a beautiful and wonderful wife, and he adored her unconditionally, though never without fear, much to his and Val's sadness.

Sometimes, when the day was over and their children had settled into sleep, he would gently run his fingers through Valerie's dark hair as she slept, crying softly.

_He didn't even say goodbye  
>He didn't take the time to lie.<em>

Bang bang, he shot me down  
>Bang bang, I hit the ground<br>Bang bang, that awful sound  
>Bang bang, my baby shot me down.<p> 


End file.
